


coincidences both real and manufactured

by gendzl



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, M/M, Nobody actually gets together in this fic it's all just meddling and inevitability, Shitty swears a lot which is why this is rated higher than it strictly needs to be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-27 06:41:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21114389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gendzl/pseuds/gendzl
Summary: Five times Bob and Alicia tried setting their son up with their neighbor, and one time they didn't have to.





	coincidences both real and manufactured

**Author's Note:**

> This is an AU where Jack never went to Samwell. Assume he *throws dart* took a year away from hockey for rehab and *spins wheel* signed with the Falconers immediately, somehow. Idk how the NHL works. Bitty stuck with figure skating, purely because this fic capitalizes on his initial canon ignorance of who Bad Bob Zimmermann was.
> 
> I wrote this out all in one go. Apologies for any mistakes, typos, or punchdrunkesque writing. It is so late and I am so tired.

Jack had stopped pretending that he understood his parents years ago, but that didn’t prevent a migraine from blooming behind his right eye when his mother informed him, cheerily, that they were looking for a change of pace and had decided to buy a quaint (her word) 3-bedroom house on the outskirts of Boston.

“_Maman_,” he said, exasperated. “I am a grown man. You two don’t have to come here to keep an eye on me.”

“Too late!” Alicia said, laughing. “But, no, we’re not coming to keep an eye on you; you don’t even live in Boston, Jack. This is a smart move for us! You know how your father loves this city. And real estate is always a good investment—it’s a buyer’s market right now, too.”

She said that with such _confidence_, as though she really believed what she was saying. Jack, however, had been firmly convinced for the last several years that ‘buyer’s market’ and ‘seller’s market’ were two fully interchangeable, utterly meaningless terms made up by realtors wanting to push you into making a decision before you were ready.

(Before you ask, _yes_, he regretted the first house he bought, but it’s not like he’s bitter or anything. It was fine. A mistake, maybe, but whatever. He sold it again eventually. At a loss, but—)

Her wording pinged something at the back of his migraine, and his suspicions grew. “You’ve bought the house already, haven’t you.”

“_Ouais_. We’ll be all moved in before playoffs start.”

Jack needed to go lie down.

* * *

[1]

Alicia met their new neighbors first.

Bob had never—not once—cared that his wife met someone before he did, but that was before he came home to Alicia standing over an empty pie plate, her expression far guiltier than a pie plate should make anyone look.

He set his keys on the kitchen island in something that felt like slow motion before leaning over just as slowly to stare at the remaining crumbs of what seemed to be an—he sniffed—apple pie. Then he turned to Alicia, brows raised.

“I think Jack should come for a visit this weekend,” was all she said.

His eyebrows climbed even higher at the non sequitur. He looked from the pie plate to his wife and back again.

Her cheeks pinked.

“I met our neighbors. The ones in the yellow house?” She pointed unnecessarily. He knew the one. They’d glimpsed a fabulously mustachioed man smoking out on the roof in his boxers more than once already. “It’s a bunch of young people living there, and, Bob…Jack is going to love him.”

_Him_. Oh no. Bob knew that look.

He mentally tabled the issue. “Honey, you’re not explaining the pie,” he said.

Alicia’s eyelid twitched and she looked off to one side, fingers running absently along the edge of the granite countertop. “Well, one of them _bakes_, and he brought over this pie and I meant to just eat a small slice and save the rest to share with you, but—”

“You ate the whole thing yourself,” he finished.

“Well, we talked over tea and he and his friend had a slice, too, so it wasn’t all me. But, Bob, you don’t understand. This pie was—it was…indescribable. You’ve never eaten a pie like this one.”

He eyed the empty pie plate. “And it seems I never will.”

“Sorry.” She gave him a sheepish grin. “But if Jack likes him, there’s a decent chance that there will _always_ be pie.”

“Are you really trying to set our son up with a man just so you have regular access to his pie?”

She shook herself out of the stupor she’d visibly fallen into at the memory of what she’d just eaten. “No! I mean, the pie was _great_, excellent—transcendent, really—but I do actually think he and Eric would hit it off. I’m not marrying our son off for pastries, however good they are.”

It was cute, that she thought her voice was firm when she said that last bit.

“Must have been some pie,” was all Bob said, but he pulled his phone out to invite Jack over that weekend. He could use some help hanging the last of their photos, anyway.

(Jack did come over for dinner that weekend, and they hung the photos that needed hanging, and they had a somewhat disappointing tiramisu for dessert, and Bob tried very hard not to think of the pie he still hadn’t gotten to taste, or the fact that their neighbors in the yellow house seemed to have disappeared for the weekend. That was _not_ the point of this visit, he told himself sternly.)

* * *

[2]

Eric Bittle was going to marry his son.

Their wedding would be tasteful, and probably larger than anyone would like, and Bob would pay for it all without batting an eye or complaining even once because _wow, this pie_.

He would privately admit to thinking that his wife had exaggerated just how good Eric’s pies were. Bob regretted those thoughts. Those thoughts were traitorous, and wrong, and he would never think ill of Eric, his pies, or his wife’s taste buds ever again.

He floated across the lawn towards home with a spring in his step and the lingering bite of citrus on his tongue. He closed the door behind him, kicked off his shoes, and shouted up the stairs, “ALICIA, I’M IN.”

Alicia appeared at the top of the steps moments later, arms crossed over her chest. “In on what?”

“Your little—“ he waggled his fingers in the direction of Eric’s magical kitchen “—plan. To get Jack and our neighbor together. I’m in.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You had Eric’s pie without me.”

“Yeah, well, now we’re even. Get down here! We need a game plan.”

He wondered absently if Eric would object to getting married in Montreal.

(When he voiced that thought to Eric himself a few days later, the man had spluttered and turned the brightest shade of red Bob had ever seen. Alicia had just laughed and reached for another slice of cranberry tart. “My husband has gotten it into his head that you need to marry our son,” she said, throwing Bob under the bus without remorse. Eric had somehow turned even redder. He’d then made several excuses as to why he preferred to remain single, thank you—none of which deterred the Zimmermanns.)

* * *

[3]

(Their next attempt was more carefully plotted. They’d written it out step-by-step on the white board in Alicia’s office, and designed a short script to go with it. It involved no fewer than three falsely frantic text messages, a strategic decision to run out of gas in their car halfway between Jack’s and home, and a performance he believed worthy of finally getting his wife that third Oscar.)

(It failed. The two of them never even saw each other. Neither of them had even answered their phones! Jack texted “You two get home okay?” three hours after the fact, offering no explanation as to where he’d been. Eric, it turned out, had picked up an extra shift that day. They tried to feel bad about accepting his apology pie, but it was apple again, so they hadn’t quite managed.)

* * *

[4]

Attempt number four was just an embarrassment, and is not worth mentioning. (There was a goose.)

* * *

[5]

“I give up,” Alicia said, running a hand over her face. “I’m out of ideas. Eric is never going to meet our son, let alone marry him, and we’re going to live a pining, pieless existence right on up until our deaths. As soon as he realizes his full potential and moves to Paris where he will be properly appreciated for his genius, the two of us will perish here in our home, mere husks of our former selves. Jack will mourn us in ignorance.”

Bob laughed humorlessly. The prospect was too dire to even consider. He squinted at the far wall and voiced the last idea he had—the one he thought they’d never need. “We haven’t tried the direct approach,” he said. “We could _tell_ Jack about Eric. One final nudge, as it were.”

Push, really. Violent shove. He’d trip his son at Eric himself if he thought it would do any good.

Alicia sighed and reached for her phone where it sat on the coffee table. She tossed it into her husband’s lap and returned to ruminating on their bleak future while he dialed.

(Jack called them both “meddlers” and hung up on him before Bob even managed to tell him Eric’s name.)

* * *

[+1]

At the start of every summer, Jack spent two weeks at a campground in the middle of nowhere to “hug some fucking trees, or whatever” (—Snowy). He never disclosed which campground it was, because he knew that the moment he did, his team would descend on it like a pack of wild dogs and he’d never know peace again.

And he needed peace. The chaos of the hockey season was manageable, now, with the passage of time and regular therapy, but he still needed to unwind and put his brain back in order at the end of it all. Staring at a placid lake for a few days until he feels like himself again is just part of how Jack copes.

Win or lose, the day after playoffs ended, Jack would pack up and start driving west.

Most years, he went the whole two weeks without talking to a single soul.

This year, not so much.

He’d arrived late, for one thing. For another, they hadn’t predicted any rain, but there it was, pouring down like someone had a personal vendetta against him setting up a tent.

They’d been knocked out of the playoffs a bit earlier than they probably should have been, sure, but he didn’t think God cared _that much_ about hockey.

Jack had only gotten out of his truck long enough to shove the envelope containing his payment into the small lock box just inside the entrance to the campground, but by the time he was back in the cab, soaking wet, he’d decided there was no way in hell he was going to try and set up a tent in this weather.

His only options were to wait it out or turn back, and he wasn’t about to break tradition. He drove up the dirt (mud) road slowly, cursing at his windshield wipers (already on the highest setting and doing very little to cut through the sheets of rain) as he went.

He parked in front of a sign that he _thought_ read “14” but that could also have said “fuck you in particular, Jack Zimmermann” for all he could see.

And then he sat.

And sat.

And sat.

He reorganized his already neat glove box, found an expired Clif bar (in a flavor they no longer sold, he mourned) under the front passenger seat, emptied old receipts from his wallet, adjusted the height of his steering wheel twice, and was just starting to get bored enough to wonder if he _could_ set up a tent in this weather when someone knocked on his window.

He startled and slammed his knee up into the steering column, swearing loudly.

“Fuck, man, are you okay?” The voice was muffled by both the rain and the closed window.

He cracked the window open slightly. “Uh, yeah, I’m fine. Hello.”

A laugh. “Hey. We saw your lights when you drove in a while ago. Do you want to wait out the storm in our tent? We promise we aren’t axe murderers, and also we have a shitton of beer.”

Beer sounded good. Company sounded even better, after being trapped for so long (really it was like. 20 minutes.) listening to nothing but his own thoughts and the rain crashing down on the roof of the truck.

“_Yes_. Thank you.”

“No problem, man. Come on out, this umbrella is fuckin’ huge.”

Once Jack was mostly dry again and equipped with a beer, he found himself staring into two expectant faces and one that was merely politely interested.

Oh.

“I’m Jack,” he said, perhaps unnecessarily.

“Shit yeah, you are! I tell ya, I wasn’t expecting a six foot somethin’ hockey player to come climbing outta that truck, that’s for sure.” This from the man who had introduced himself as ‘Shitty’ with a perfectly straight face, leaving Jack no option but to think he meant it.

The man with the polite expression on his face frowned, eyebrows pinching together. “Hockey player?” he asked.

The woman (‘Lardo’, and he was still half certain they were all fucking with him) threw one arm around him and grinned. “Bitty here used to figure skate. We’ve been trying to get him into hockey, but it’s been slow going. He didn’t even recognize our neighbors, so clearly our lectures haven’t been very effective. We need more visual aids.”

“Oh, Lord,” Bitty muttered at that. He looked up at Jack and grimaced.

Shitty grinned at him from under his mustache. “What are the odds, huh? We all drive a coupla hundred miles from home and still end up in spitting distance from each other.”

Jack squinted at the three of them with a hint of dread. “Who are your neighbors?”

“I don’t know. Bits, who _are_ our neighbors?” Lardo was clearly enjoying herself.

In a tone that made it clear this information had been hammered into him at length, Bitty promptly began reciting what Jack was sure would shape up to be a several minute monologue. “In the summer of 1985, the fearless Robert ‘Bad Bob’ Zimmermann got down on one knee at center ice and—“

“_Crisse_,” Jack spat.

Shitty collapsed into a fit of laughter, Lardo’s grin grew positively shit-eating, and Bitty looked more confused than ever.

“Which one of you bakes?” Jack asked flatly. (Shitty laughed even harder at that, for some reason.)

Bitty raised a hand to point at himself. “Uh, how did you know that?”

The rain abated after a few hours, but Jack spent the rest of the night in their tent anyway (“—it’s not a tent! It’s Haus iteration 2.3, bro.”).

In the morning, he had three extra pairs of hands helping him set up his own tent, which they ended up dragging to the edge of his campsite at the end of the second day, so that it neatly abutted theirs.

Their two campsites merged completely after one week.

Jack spent far less time staring at the lake than he had in previous years, but he also spent more time laughing, and he found that to be just as effective.

Bitty taught him to cook pancakes over a campfire while Shitty and Lardo were "off hiking some of the longer trails” (read: giving the two of them as much time alone as possible).

By the end of the two weeks, Jack was prepared to admit that maybe, sometimes, his parents had some good ideas.

(Jack, the oblivious goober that he is, never thought to find it strange that not only had they all ended up at the same campground—an actual coincidence—but that they also all just happened to be staying for the same length of time—a fully manufactured coincidence. Shitty and Lardo had a whispered argument with Bitty after their three day planned vacation was over, and through a combination of wheedling, threats, bargaining, and bribes, they convinced him to call work and feign a family emergency in the name of true love. Shitty drove home and back on the fourth day to fetch them all fresh clothing and more beer. While he was there, he stopped to deliver some news to their neighbors.

When he left, Alicia carefully closed the front door and looked over at her husband, eyes wide. “Honey.”

“I know.” He was positively giddy.

“Honey, we’re gonna be eating those pies _forever_._”_

_“I know.”)_

**Author's Note:**

> That last section at the campground is cheerfully stolen from a real and actual thing that happened to some people I know. (Well, kinda. None of them fell in love, but they _did_ start out a couple hundred miles away from each other only to all drive out to the same random campground in the middle of nowhere and realize that they all knew me. Life is weird.)


End file.
